Fear makes the wolf look bigger

There is some artistic graffiti on the road to Devon’s north shore in England that all surfers can relate to, “Fear makes the wolf look bigger”. Every time I drive past it, it always helps to give me drive and focus for my next session.

Depending on your surfing experience, fear can mean different things. For the learner it’s a combination of progressing into bigger waves, managing the crowds, using the rips, taking steeper drops, suffering the wipe-outs and enduring the hold-downs. To the seasoned charger the same still applies but on a much higher level. That and the bottom is more likely to be lined with rocks than a forgiving layer of sand.

At some point we’ve all been intimidated by the surf conditions:

“I don’t think I can I make this drop”

“I can’t handle a swell this big”

“These waves are breaking way too fast for me”

These are just some of the voices inside our heads pushing us to hesitate and save our skins, and to be fair, it’s a natural human instinct. Fear is however a matter of opinion. In the early part of the learning curve a lot of surfers’ fears are misplaced. Sure the new environment of staring down into the pit of a shoulder high wave may feel intimidating, but the risk is somewhat small compared to the waves more learned surfers are prepared to take on.

If those more experienced surfers were to recall their early days of surfing when they took that first big drop, they’d probably admit they had butterflies at the time, but the surf would have to be at least over-head for them to feel the same terror now.

Whether fear is misplaced or not, whether you’re a seasoned wave rider or not, fear isn’t what makes surfing fun. Fear is what makes surfing exhilarating. Of course fear can make the wolf look bigger, but ask most surfers and they’d prefer the surfing equivalent of being chased by a wolf, than taking the dog for a walk.

Everyone, including myself can remember occasions when they worked up the bottle to take on a daunting set wave and say, “screw it, I’m going”. For me it happened again recently surfing in New Zealand. It was bigger than anything I’d attempted in a while and the waves had looked makeable from the shore but at least half of them were now closing out. I was in the vein of the wave, there was no going back, the only way out was to catch one in, so paddling for all my worth, the adrenalin pumping, and the wave literally exploding just over my shoulder, I scrambled to my feet.

As usual I mistimed my wave and found myself air dropping into an abyss of foam, but somehow, unbelievably, I’d set my rail and as I opened my eyes I came shooting out of the exploding white water and realised I was still there, in the pocket, hugging the wall and going faster than ever before. Screaming down the line at the top of my lungs, no one was any doubt how I felt. I won no points for grace, poise or style but I’d never felt better, ever.

Instances like this when you overcome trepidation, yield the most powerful feeling from surfing. Regardless of your motivation for paddling into that wave (glory/challenge/quickest way to the beach) the fact that you know you went for it, without hesitation, with no guarantee of making it and came out the other end with a huge grin on your face is an extremely potent type of stoke.

They say the best surfer is the one having the most fun, and I’ve seen learners having just stood up for the first time be more stoked than more experienced surfers, but I bet if you asked them how they felt after their first wave of consequence, the first time they pushed their fears aside and caught their first mini-monster, their stoke would surpass anything that had gone before and make most wolves run for cover.

This is not to say that trying to overcome our fears doesn’t have consequences. Fear by its very nature demands respect otherwise it would not be fear. Even innocuous waves can pack a punch and be the ones that provide a humbling wipe-out.

We all have different fears and none should be underestimated, but consider a future where on that one occasion when you had that chance to take that wave that scared you, and you backed down. You didn’t even try. Not a comfortable thought eh? As surfers, we go or we do not, but I’d like to propose an alternative, where next time, you go for it, go for it like you’ll make it… and who knows… you might make that wolf look a little smaller.